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HOUSTON AND HOUSTONIANS 123a drink. There is a big crowd there'and everybody wants tohear how Fish cashes in. I am right in the middle of my tale,and I admit it has taken more time to tell it than I had calculated,when the barkeep, who is setting out the bug juice foranother round, gives one look over my shoulder, jumps over thecounter and goes out of the front door like a prairie on fire. Thecrowd looks where the barkeep was looking and before I knowwhat's doing I'm alone. I turns around and if I don't know thatFish is alive I'm here to tell you that I would have gone afterthe crowd too. Fish was standing in the door and had the sheetdrawn all around him. Hls face was white like a dead wan andhaving so much whiskey in him made him wabbly in the legsjust like a dead man who has just stood up out of his grave. Itsure was a scary sight. Before I could do anything Fish turnedoff and made straight for the back room, where'Fergerson wasdealing monte. The room was pretty full and when Fish buttsin nobody looks around, thinking its only some of the boys comingin to buck the game."Fish gets right in the middle of the room before anybody seeshim. Then a Mexican looks round and instantly climbs overeverybody in front of him and lands right on Fergerson's montetable. Fergerson rises to squash the Mexica and sees Fish.There's a window 'back of where Fergeson was sitting and hegoes out of it backward. He is in such a hurry that he don'ttake time to turn round. The other boys and the Mexicans seeFish and hell breaks loose. They all try to get out the windowat the same time and naturally tear the whole side of the homeout."Riley hears the racket half a mile away and comes in hisbuckboard like a streak of lightning, for he guess somethinghas taken place. When he gets there he Snds nobody but meand Fish. I am on the floor laughing, while Fish s biahind thebar helping himself to a big drink out of a bottle. tley don'task for explanations. He grabs Fish, throws him on his buckboardand hurries away with him. He told me afterward thathe gave a Mexican he could trust $20 to take him to the nexttown with orders to keep going if he wanted to keep from beinghung by the boys."Riley explained to the boys that it must have been a casof 'revived mortality,' and that Fish must have wandered off andbeen eaten up by wolves. Of course, he gave Fish some moneyto live on and he gave the money back to the boys that theyhad put up to bury him with, so instead of getting rid of Fishcheaply, as he calculated, it cost him a good deal. Fish wanderedaround and died in San Antonio a few years ago. The fm ything was that when he died sure enough and the boys werechipping in to bury him, Fergeron examined him careful beforehe would subscribe a cent. When he found Fish was realyhead he doubled his subscription, he W ro glad."